The commanders locked in the basement in a standoff with the Alpha Gold Crown began suffering nosebleeds and bleeding from their ears one after another. The front of Shi Zhixin’s uniform was spattered with red, the stains nearly merging into one solid patch… This was the price of using mental power beyond its limits.
Yet under the surveillance cameras, “Qi Chengyan’s” expression only grew more relaxed. His subordinates were almost all in position, and the infected were drawing closer by the minute. It was time to leave.
He slowly rose from the ground. At the same time, commanders in the monitoring room began collapsing from mental exhaustion.
“Stop wasting your strength. You have people, but do you think I don’t? A bunch of S-rankers is nothing. Any decent Alpha can reach this level…”
More and more infected people flooded into the building, heading straight for the basement.
“No! I’ll hold them off. You keep going—don’t give up!”
Seeing what was happening, several commanders and mecha technicians in the monitoring room immediately tried to go out and confront the enemy.
Buy a little more time. At the very least, it couldn’t happen now!
But before they could even step outside, the mental power of the countless Zerg pressed down on them so heavily that they could barely move.
Shi Zhixin’s knees also grew weak. Frame by frame, different images flashed before his eyes—precious memories that had once existed in the minds of the soldiers…
Those Zerg had projected the memories into mental illusions to confuse them!?
“Urgh!”
He couldn’t help vomiting another mouthful of blood.
Seeing that he was about to collapse, the commanders immediately joined forces to raise a mental barrier around Shi Zhixin. The barrier could only hold for a limited time, but at least it allowed his body to move again.
The Zerg surged toward the area holding the Alpha Gold Crown and the monitoring room. Shi Zhixin struggled to operate his wrist terminal, tapping the screen several times.
“Bang!”
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
The attackers had begun pounding on the monitoring room door. Every soldier drew their sidearm.
“Everyone, listen for my command! Prepare—”
Before long, Li Qin slowly arrived at the door. Within the five layers of glass shielding, “Qi Chengyan” lifted his head toward the surveillance camera. The two of them simultaneously broke into radiant smiles.
The surveillance feed went black.
The next second—
“Bang!”
“Fire!”
The monitoring room door was blown straight off its hinges. Everyone opened fire at once, but most of the bullets struck the ordinary infected Zerg nearby instead.
Shi Zhixin gritted his teeth and aimed at Li Qin’s head, only to discover that the bullet had been stopped a short distance away from him.
A materialized mental-power barrier!?
No wonder no one had been able to hit him…
Li Qin looked positively delighted. After all these days, this was the first time he had been so close to his main body. The sensation of overflowing mental power was simply wonderful~
“Advance.”
At that lightly spoken command, a large number of humans infected by the Zerg pounced into the monitoring room!
In such a cramped space, the commanders and mecha technicians had nowhere to dodge. But once the Zerg left their human hosts, they moved through the room as freely as fish in the sea…
When Li Qin spotted Shi Zhixin among the crowd, he recognized him as the man who had built the containment pod and transferred him to Tianshu. Back then, he had even asked Li Qin questions about “Qi Chengyan.”
The five-layer isolation chamber and that strange mental-power extraction device also appeared to be Shi Zhixin’s work.
To be honest, those things had caused him quite a bit of trouble. Otherwise, that old fool Meng Chongyun might not have been able to defeat him.
On the other hand, this also proved that Shi Zhixin’s technical skills were rather impressive. Li Qin pointed at him with one hand.
“Leave him alive.”
Shi Zhixin was once again bound by overwhelming mental power, rendering his entire body immobile.
Only a portion of the commanders around him were still fighting. But as more and more people became infected, all signs of resistance eventually fell silent…
The mental power that had been attacking and suppressing “Qi Chengyan” finally vanished completely. The heavy door to the isolation chamber was opened from the outside by the “people” there.
“We can leave now.”
The glass shielding opened layer by layer. At last, the young man at the center of the basement took his first step outside.
Only after Li Qin and his subordinates had all changed into bodies they found satisfactory did they curiously enter the monitoring room.
“So this is where you monitored and suppressed me… Don’t you find it a little cramped?”
Shi Zhixin forced his lips to move.
“Why… keep me alive?”
Li Qin shifted his gaze away from the various screens before him.
“You seem rather intelligent.”
Meeting the man’s furious eyes, Li Qin curled one corner of his mouth.
“Besides the containment pod and those devices, you know how to build mechas too, right?”
As he spoke, the golden color in his eyes seemed to ripple once again. Shi Zhixin hurriedly shut his eyes, yet he could still feel something invading his mind.
“So, would you be willing to build specialized mechas for our Zerg?”
“…No.”
The livestream had yet to be cut off. Military personnel and ordinary citizens watching the scene were nearly driven mad with fury.
“Teacher Shi!”
“Don’t! Military, hurry up!”
“He’s not going to make it…”
“You’d better think carefully before answering~”
“Qi Chengyan” had already left. Li Qin turned the camera away to keep the scene from being captured, then tried to infect the man in front of him.
Although he was separated from his main body by another host, his mental power was still sufficient for now.
Shi Zhixin felt his mind grow hazy. The voice coming from his own mouth seemed to drift toward him from somewhere far away.
“I… am willing.”
Hearing that answer, Li Qin immediately enlarged the virtual display on his wrist terminal.
“See? Now that’s the correct answer! Federation citizen, welcome to the Alpha!”
But the audience watching the livestream didn’t buy it at all.
“Bullshit!”
“Don’t think we don’t know he was brainwashed by you! Fight us in hand-to-hand combat if you’ve got the guts!”
“You want us to give up resisting? Dream on!”
“You’ve killed so many soldiers. You’re going straight to hell!”
“Hmm? Hell… Ah, a space imagined by an ancient Earth human.”
“Bang!”
The bullet stopped one centimeter from his forehead.
Li Qin slowly raised his head.
“I only relaxed my restraint a little…”
The man before him had eyes that had completely lost focus, yet he was still raising a laughable little handgun.
“You’re not as clever as I thought.”
So he had only agreed a moment ago to trick Li Qin into relaxing his mental control? This man was becoming rather irritating.
A sharp pain instantly tore through Shi Zhixin’s brain.
“Ah!”
“Forget it. It’s not as though you’re the only one who can build mechas.”
Under the mental assault, blood poured even more heavily from Shi Zhixin’s nose and ears than before.
A Zerg approached him. The exhausted man tugged weakly at the corner of his mouth, his voice barely audible.
“You… can… dream! If there are any survivors… please help me.”
Suddenly, his wrist moved again. He twisted it around.
“Bang!”
The instant he fell backward onto the floor, his vision finally cleared. The white lights overhead were bright and familiar, and his comrades from the military surrounded him.
Even in death, he would never become one of the Zerg…
